The Post Graduate Flail

Today we got up bright and early, put the finishing touches to making the apartment look nice enough for the subletter to want to sign a lease, and showed off the place. It looked awesome– I kind of wish that it would look this awesome all the time. Then we checked out our new place: it’s as gorgeous as we remembered. I’m so excited… that kitchen is going to be my pride and joy.

I also enjoyed some shopping with some of my favorite co-workers. We hit up Marshalls, Steinmart, Macy’s, Sephora, and New York & CO. It. was. glorious. I found some new sandals, a dress, two swimsuits, a couple of t-shirts, some shorts, a skirt, and a new purse (since my old one is barely hanging by a thread). It was a busy day! It was really nice to hang out with my co-workers outside of work: it was wonderful getting to know them and do something other than talking about work.

I also had a chance to take a look around for furniture for the new place… I found a few chairs that I liked, but wasn’t ready to make any big commitments. My favorite was a light blue upholstered chair– it looks like this, but in light blue with silver threads running throughout. I also found a different blue chair that I liked: like this, but midnight blue. I’m hoping to take EJV around to the different stores for a final vote tomorrow.

This day has been magnificent, and I’m excited that things seem to be headed in the right direction, especially considering the surprise we encountered Thursday morning. And now, I’m off to enjoy some drinks with friends outside. I’ll probably wear my new dress… and the new sandals.

… for a lazy Sunday.

+ After seeing the Volvo commercial, I was trying to find who sings the Little Red Riding song for it, and instead, found this:

Umm. Amazing. Life is certainly not fair, hey?

+ I’m itching to go back to school. Surprise of my life. Now we just have to find a place that has enough room for both of us to study… we have a lot to get done in the next couple of years.

+ This dad is awesome. He’s been doing a bunch of pictures of his kids in some pretty cool poses/settings… Check out his pics here.

+ This will forever be one of my favorite songs. Try blasting it in your car at the very beginning of springs, with the sun shining and the windows down… I promise you’ll never hear the song the same way again. And the sax in this song gets me every time. Every. Single. Time.

+ So, I will never claim to be a fan of any NFL team other than the Packers, but this article talks about a very classy move on the part of the Raiders… They’re donating 10% of their ticket sales to Oakland schools. Since schools nationwide have been losing money and resources, maybe this is how we’ll fund educating our kids. Class act, Raiders… very impressive.

+Jason and I just watched The Social Network… we’ll be spending the rest of the day thinking up ways to be the second youngest billionaires in the world. Shouldn’t take long.

What are you up to today?

I officially need a weekend to recover from my weekend. It’s been a non-stop whirlwind of food, friends, and (mostly) BEER.

Friday night we were lucky enough to meet up with some fellow Badger alums at the Deep Ellum Food Truck Rally. Jason and I both ordered from the CHEEESSY from the The Bacon Wagon. The CHEEESSY is a grilled cheese sandwich with cheddar, goat cheese, bacon, and tomato. Heaven. Seriously. They cost $7-ish a piece, but I would have gladly paid double that. The best sandwich I’ve had in a long time (if not ever)… the weekend could have ended then and it would still have been a great weekend.

Luckily, the weekend was far from over. Next, we headed to Anvil Pub on Commerce, and enjoyed some IPAs on the patio. I’ve been meaning to try Anvil for a while (Clare talked about it here and here), and I’m excited to head back there at some point. They have a great selection of beers on tap, including some local beers from Deep Ellum Brewery. They also allow patrons to bring their dogs and sit outside with them (either in the front or on the back patio), which made me even more excited about getting a dog sometime soon.

One of my favorite finds at The Bottle Shop... Great Divide's Oak Aged Yeti Espresso Stout. I'm also a big fan of their Vanilla Porter.

The Bottle Shop was up next… holy selection Batman. Think a wine bar for beer, with an awesome German beer-hall style table. It’s not very big, but it has a phenomenal beer selection, many of which are available cold. We definitely had our share, and I’m looking forward to stopping by again and sampling other beers.

At the end of the night (after another quick stop at The Libertine), we made our way to Greenville Avenue Pizza Co, where we ordered a thin-crust pizza with spinach, green peppers, onions, and proscuitto. Loved it — I haven’t found too many places that can make a decent thin-crust pizza, and the ratio of sauce to ingredients to crust was perfect. I definitely recommend make a stop there after a night of beer sampling.

On Saturday, we had tickets for the Big Texas Beer Fest. When I started my new job on Monday, one of my co-workers mentioned that her husband would be going to the beer fest, and I immediately told Jason about it. When I picked him up from work on Friday afternoon, he surprised me with tickets! Since we knew that we weren’t going to be driving home, we walked to the Cotton Bowl Stadium (only about two miles from our apartment), and waited in line to have our IDs checked. We started chatting with the people in front of us, and it turned out that they had also been to the Food Truck Rally, Anvil, and The Libertine the night before… weird, right?

Anyway, once we got in, the beer fest was awesome. I don’t know how many beers we tried (Jason had quite a few more than I did), but most of them were great. My favorites were the white beers from Alaskan Brewing Company (Alaskan White) and Maui Brewing Company (La Perouse White). There was a really tasty beer called La Fin du Monde – a Belgian style trippel — from Unibroue (a Canadian brewery), which apparently also brews and bottles Trader Joe’s Vintage Ale, another one of my favorites. I also noticed that a few of my favorite beers are from Boulder, CO… I’m thinking that a little brewery-tour trip to the fair state of Colorado might be in order sometime next year. (What say you, EJV?)

After the brewfest ended, Deep Ellum Brewing Company sponsored an after-party… which we gladly went to. They had several beers on tap, and we were invited to take a self-guided tour of the facilities. It was a great crowd — fest-goers and non-fest participants enjoyed some beer and live entertainment as the sun went down.

Of course, after all the beer sampling and marching around we did, we needed some dinner, and were happy to try out Twisted Root, a place known in Dallas for its great burgers. We were not disappointed… though I was full long before my burger was done, I enjoyed every bite, and Jason didn’t need to be asked twice to polish it off. (This is surprising only because he had his own burger, a bacon-flavored soda, and a peanut-butter-cup shake before he got my leftovers.) I can’t wait to go back and try some other variations of the burger — the Spicy Goat looks promising!

We eventually made it to bed, and were up early-ish this morning to meet some Badger alums at Ozona for brunch. I came home to nap, and then we were off again to be fed by the lovely Miss Cassie, who cooked beer-boiled brats, hot wings, asparagus, and corn muffins. Seriously, how lucky are we?!

And now it’s time for my body to recover. I’m thinking it’ll take lots of sleep, lots of vegetables, some exercise, and probably gallons of water. This weekend was a ton of fun, but I can’t believe I used to do this nearly every weekend in college! Now wonder I didn’t always make it to my morning classes. (Whoops.)

How was your weekend?